When I returned home, the store was closed. Everything lied in its rightful places, the floor was cleaned, the window shutters were down, and the cashbox was locked. I hummed appreciatively. JJ and Panda remembered my instructions well.
Neither of them were in, but there was a light in the office. I looked in and saw just the man I expected to see, just where I expected him to see—JJ, working on the computer. I walked in and gave him a weak wave.
"Hi! How was your first shift without me? Got a lot of customers?"
JJ turned away from the computer to give me one of his dazzling smiles—one that showed his fangs in all their dangerous beauty—before turning back to type something. I took notice that he used all his fingers for it now instead of only two. "You will be pleased with the results, ma chèrie."
I left my backpack at the door and walked up to him to look at the screen. Instead of Wikipedia articles I saw a spreadsheet in there, one of the ones I used for managing my finances. My eyes narrowed.
"JJ… What were you up to? I didn't show you how to do documentation… You were supposed to only write down sold items and the income from the deals."
JJ's long fingers paused over the keyboard. He threw me a coy look from the corner of his eyes. "Never to be said, ma chèrie, that I don't hold to my promises… Only the ones given freely, of course. I promised to help you build your dream, didn't I?"
"And how is what you are doing helping it? What are you doing exactly, actually?"
"Now that I have a grasp on modern technology and the new laws, I examined your documentation. It definitely lacked a touch of a good accountant."
I scowled. These were my dad's documents! Sometimes mine, when I helped him with ledgers, but mostly his. "Oh, yeah?"
JJ nodded. "Since hiring one at this stage of your business is a waste of money, I reworked them myself. You can look at compare. Don't worry, ma chèrie, all your original files are safe and sound."
I pursed my lips, still unhappy, but not so much now. As long as there were backups, it was fine. I grabbed a second chair and sat next to JJ, who scurried aside to accommodate me. "Let me look at what you have 'touched', JJ…"
"With pleasure."
My initial apprehension quickly gave way to a mix of awe and shame as JJ showed and explained to me the difference between old and new. Awe at how well JJ knew his numbers, shame at how badly I knew them. The ledgers filled by my dad were mostly fine on their own. Mine…
"I know how to count, alright? I just misspelled a number. It happens to everyone!" I grumbled, feeling like a schoolgirl all over again.
JJ only chuckled at my excuses. "Sometimes, yes. But you misspelled a number on that page, too, ma chèrie." He pointed at another place on the paper balance sheet we were perusing at the moment. "Then you put all these into the computer, where that mistake carried on to the month's total…"
I groaned, hiding my face in my palms. I had no words anymore. Through the gaps between my fingers, I saw JJ shake his head with an amused smile and closed the balance sheet.
Only when his explanations moved past my mistakes and into the general improvements he made did I calm down. The system for documentation he offered was much simpler to use and understanding that the one I inherited from my dad, and he filled documentation for today's shift based on my existing ledgers.
It was hard to believe he only got out of his coffin a week before. Sometimes I couldn't imagine how far we came from just a century ago… Or how close to it we still were. Though, it would've been wrong to say that JJ belonged to the twentieth century, or any other era.
To me, he felt timeless. An entity beyond mortal comprehension, at least the insides of his head. I remembered his earlier declaration to me and couldn't keep looking at him any longer. Good thing there was still a world of spreadsheets in front of me.
"You seem distracted, ma chèrie. I imagine accounting isn't your strong nor favourite suit, is it?" JJ asked into my ear, his cold breath making me shiver as much as his velvety voice and sexy French accent did.
I hid my reaction behind snark, irony, and a roll of my eyes. "How did you even guess?"
As usual, it brought no reaction from him. The man had a thick skin, if I've ever seen one. He stopped hovering over me, though. "Let's skip to the part that will make you happy, then, ma chèrie," JJ said with another of his smiles.
He opened the next spreadsheet. For a second I just took it all in, before its meaning—and the number in 'total' field—hit. I stared at it in astonishment for few more seconds, before turning towards JJ, my disbelief changing into suspicion.
"Fifty-four thousand? Whom did you hypnotise?" I like Panda, but she wouldn't sell so much unless she got to be really lucky, and not on the second day after the shop's reopening.
"Ma chèrie! You wound me. I would never!" JJ leaned back, his hand on his heart. It dropped a moment later, and JJ's expression of wounded innocence morphed into a wide grin. "It would've been so boring."
Of course. I sighed, shaking my head in exasperation. "JJ, you are something else. But that's alright. Keep bringing in all that cash and I will be able to pay Avarice off for this month. Oh, and speaking of! Guess whom I met today?"
JJ frowned. "You met her? Where?"
I waved my hand dismissively. "Just a few blocks away, at a flea market. I wonder what she was doing there. She seemed as surprised I was. Visiting her nephew? Also, did you know that Avarice had an actual living nephew? Who is a con artist, by the way. What a family. A vampire loan shark, a con artist… I hope to never meet the rest of them."